Next To Your Heart Beat
by ForeverAndAlwaysCaskett
Summary: "He left because of you." She had put those words behind her a year and a half earlier when the love of her life was found. Now, they come back to haunt her as the truth behind his disappearance finally comes to light. Post Ep for 8x14.
1. Only Words Bleed

**A/N: Hi everyone! This idea came to me in the middle of the night and I just can't let it go! While I have written FanFiction before, this is my first attempt at this wonderful couple from Castle! This will be a six chapter story and was inspired by Ed Sheeran's "Photograph." I hope you all enjoy and feel free to review! :) I have no beta so all mistakes are mine! These characters belong to Andrew Marlowe and Co. and ABC. No copyright infringement intended!  
**

Castle makes his way through the empty hallway of his building, a mix of anxiety and pain etched across his face. He reaches the door, pauses with his hand on the handle, and takes a deep breath.

Inside the loft, Kate paces back and forth in front to the sofa obsessively checking her watch. His plane was supposed to land hours ago and she hasn't heard a word from him. She knows being here is risky, Alexis or Martha could come looking for Castle at any moment, but his well being and safety is more important to her than keeping up some silly ruse that they are separated. She's sure he is just fine, probably just forget to turn his phone back on in his rush to get back to her and tell her what he found out.

She's ripped away from her thoughts when she hears the door open. She turns quickly and runs, collapsing into Rick's arms before he has a chance to fully enter the loft. He drops his bag the instant she crashes into him and wraps his arms around her back, one traveling up to tangle in her hair. Holding her for what he thinks may be the last time.

"Thank god you're okay." She breaths, clutching onto him for dear life. "What happened? You were supposed to land hours ago and your cell has been going straight to voicemail."

Rick pulls back from her, looking into her eyes. She sees the pain and fear etched across his face and instantly tenses up. She looks at him concerned as she caresses his face with her hands, leaving them to rest on his cheeks.

"Babe? What is it? What happened?"

Castle sighs and moves her hands away from his face. He can't stand the idea of her comforting him with what he's about to tell her. After what he's done. Kate's brow furrows in confusion at his move to pull away from her and moves towards him to try again. He moves back, turns, closes the door and grabs his bag from the floor.

"You should sit." He says solemnly.

He heads towards their room, leaving a confused Beckett behind.

"Rick?" She calls. When he doesn't respond she inhales a shaky breath and makes her way to the couch, sitting down like he asked, dreading the conversation that was about to unfold.

A few minutes later, Castle emerges from their room, dressed in sweats and a t-shirt. He makes his way towards the couch but stops short and sits in one of the chairs instead. Kate starts to move, intending to join him, but he raises a hand to stop her. She sits back down, fear covering her face.

"Castle. Rick. Please, just tell me what's going on. Why won't you let me touch you? Let me near you? Whatever it is we'll figure it out. Together. You taught me that remember?" She pleads.

"I'm scared you won't want to after I tell you this." He says quietly.

"Tell me what, Rick?" She asks desperately, "Please, jus-"

"I stayed away because of you." He says quickly. "Everything that happened in DC, everything with you AG team, it was my fault! I stayed away because of you."

Kate stiffens and Rick instantly regrets his words. He wanted to say it right, he wanted to be gentle with it, explain to her what happened and now, based on the look on her face, he fears he will never get that chance.

"Kate wait, that came out wrong."

Kate doesn't hear him as she sits frozen on the couch, her hands shaking, eyes blank. "He left because of you," the words the FBI agent drilled into her head a year and a half earlier play on a loop in her head. "He left because of you." Her hand rises and rests on her chest. She can't breathe. Air, she needs air. Tears sting her eyes as she rises quickly from the couch and races to the door.

"Kate!" Castle calls desperately, rising from the couch to run after her. "Kate, please!"

He reaches the open door and enters the hallway but she is nowhere to be found. She's gone, and he thinks that this time, she may not come back. He falls against the wall and slides down it, his hands pressed to his eyes, desperately trying to stop the tears stinging his eyes.

Kate keeps a quick pace as she strides down the streets of New York. She feels trapped, those FBI agent's words echoing in her head with Castle's confirmation of them. Her skin feels tight, like her muscles are trying to burst though it. She can feel the rough texture of her wedding dress brush her arms as she runs, the contrasting feel of the cold water and excruciating heat from the fire against her skin. She hates flashbacks. For her, that's the worst part of having PTSD. As if experiencing it once wasn't enough, her brain had to take her back to that dreaded day with intense clarity. Her pace quickens to a sprint. She needs to escape it all, to get away. Before she knows it, she's outside her old apartment complex.

She knocks on the door. That still felt odd to her, even after all this time. This was her home for so long, and for the time she grew the most.

The door opened, and the familiar face looked at Kate is surprise. "Kate?" She asked.

"Hi Sophia."

* * *

The two women make their way into the living room. Sophia begins to clean up some clutter from the couch and coffee table.

"I'm sorry to barge in like this." Kate says. "I was just clearing my head and ended up here."

"Don't worry about it! You're always welcome here Katie, you know that."

The use of her childhood name brings a small smile to her face. "Thank you."

"Why don't you sit, I have something I want to give you and then you can fill me in on what's going on."

Kate began to protest but before she could get a word out Sophia had disappeared to the bedroom.

Kate looked around the familiar space, her eyes falling on the closed shutters by the window. She walks up to them, her hand brushing over the slats. She opens them, revealing the empty space inside. Her mind flashes to Castle's face plastered across the wood surrounded by collages of news paper articles with headlines telling the world he was nowhere to be found. She takes a deep breath, trying and failing to stop the tears from falling. Her panic has now morphed into heartbreak and unimaginable sadness. She closes the shutters carefully and moves to sit on the couch.

Sophia re enters the living room and approaches the couch holding an object in her hands. Sitting down, she grabs a box of tissues sitting on the coffee table and hands them to Kate. She speaks quietly as to not startle her cousin.

"What's going on Kate?" She asks.

"I-" She pauses, trying to steady her voice. "I can't really talk about it."

"Is it Castle?" Sophia asks. "Is he hurt?"

"No, no." She says quickly. He's fine. Just um. You remember how he disappeared right before our wedding?" Sophia nods. "Well, he just learned what really happened while he was gone and-" She takes a deep breath, steadying herself as more tears fell from her eyes. "It just wasn't what I was expecting."

"Oh Kate. I'm so sorry." She says as she hugs her cousin. She pulls away and turns the object in her hand over. "I know this probably isn't the right time for this but, I found this the other day, stuffed in the back of the bedroom closet. I was sure you'd just want to get rid of it but, I thought you should know."

Kate glances at Sophia, and then at the outdated cell phone in her hand. Taking it, Kate turns it over in her hands, instantly remembering why she had it in the first place.

"This is the burner phone Castle got me when we were on the run from Bracken. Everything with the wedding and Castle's disappearance happened so fast after that, I thought for sure I'd gotten rid of it."

She opens the phone, turns it on, and notices the small blinking light alerting the user to a voicemail. Confusion spreads across her face but quickly morphs into understanding as fresh tears sting her already sore eyes. Only one person would call that number.

"Thank you for this," She says as she slowly rises from the couch. "I need to get back to Castle."

"Of course." Sophia replies. "Everything will work out. It always does with you two."

Kate simply offers a weak smile in response and exits the apartment.

She stops just outside the closed apartment door, leans against the wall for support, and presses the play voicemail button. Castle's weak voice over the line is enough to send her sliding down the wall with a sob. He says only six words.

"Wait for me to come home."


	2. Loving Can Hurt

**A/N: First of all, I wanted to thank all of you who have followed, favorite and reviewed this story so far! It means a lot! Second, holy guacamole batman last Monday's episode was AMAZING! I do want to note that this story will now be AU as I will not be exactly following what happened in the episode. I may use some dialogue from the ep but other than that this story will be taking its own direction. I absolutely loved how the writers approached the situation on the show. These two have grown so much together and individually. This is definitely a different take on what could happen. I hope you all enjoy this chapter!**

 **A/N 2: This is a rough one guys. One qualm I have with the show is that I feel like we don't get to see this lovely couple actually talk/fight things out. I feel like all of this disappearance stuff coming up gives such an opportunity to cover old wounds never addressed after he came back. So we get that here but, it isn't pretty. Have faith though, I'm a sucker for happy endings!**

 **Disclaimer: This chapter does contain dialogue that is a spoiler for 8x15.**

* * *

Kate stayed slumped against the hallway wall as her hand fell to the floor, the phone bouncing on the carpet. She was frozen, focusing on her breathing trying to avoid another panic attack. He had reached out to her. He had tried to reassure her that he was okay, or as okay as he could be in that situation. He'd wanted her to know he was alive. She needed him to explain what happened. He couldn't have stayed away because of her. At least not in the way he made her think.

She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and sent Castle a quick text.

–Meet me at our spot? –K.

* * *

She sat on the swing, her fingers playing with the chain links as she waited. She heard footsteps approaching and looked up to see Rick walking towards her hesitantly. He sat down on the swing opposite of her, facing the other direction in order to see her batter. He gently placed his hand on hers atop the chains.

"Are you okay?" he asks her softly.

"No," she replies as she pulls her hand out from under his.

"Kate, I am so sorry, I-"

"You called me," she interrupts.

"I did?"

"Yeah," she looks down at the chains, playing with them again as she explains. "I left to clear my head and ended up at my old place. Sophia found that burner phone you got me when we were on the run from Bracken."

"What did I say?" he asks wearily.

"You told me to wait for you," she says as she finally looks up at him again. "Rick, I don't understand. You wanted me to wait for you yet you stayed away because of me? And it all had something to do with my AG team? You need to explain it. All of it."

Taking a deep breath, Rick nods and takes her hand, hoping this time she wont pull away.

"I knew about LokSat a year and a half ago. Before your AG team was murdered, before Vikram sought you out. And his squads came gunning. Beckett, this was on me before it was on you." Kate moves away from him, as much as she can with the restraint of the swing.

"You knew about LokSat? Everything? Including their connection to Bracken?" He looks at her, words not necessary to give her the answer she needs. "And you chose to forget this? Why?"

"For reasons you know all to well. I was trying to protect you."

"From who?" she asks him desperately.

"From yourself."

Her face is instantly covered in anger. She opens her mouth to respond but is cut off by the shrill ring of her cell phone.

"Beckett," she answers with a clip. "I'll be right there."

She stands from the swing, returns her phone to her pocket and turns to him.

"I need time to process this," she states before walking away, leaving him alone yet again.

* * *

Ricked paced back and forth in his office desperately trying to think up a plan of how to fix the situation when he hears the front door close. Beckett approaches him with a solemn look on her face. His eyes widened slightly, giving away his fear of what she might have to say.

"How did we end up here again? You lied to protect me, I lied to protect you. It has to stop."

"I know," he sighs. "But Beckett, you have to understand, had I let you in on what I found you would have died! You would have gone right back down the rabbit hole and I would have lost you."

"But I did Rick! I did go down the rabbit hole and I'm right here!" she counters.

"I know, Kate. But this is different. This was right after we got Bracken. Right after you finally got justice for your mom. Finally found peace. I didn't want to take that away from you. You would have lost it Beckett. If you knew about LokSat then you would have gone at it head first without thinking things through like you are now. I thought if I could just figure out who LokSat was I could take him down, or at least come home to you with enough information for you to take him down."

She looks at him dumbfounded. "So, you went on a suicide mission, completely on your own, no backup, left me here thinking that you were dead! I thought you were dead Rick! And you easily could have been! You were shot Castle! And what if they had discovered your identity? What then? They would have killed you and come after everyone you love! Alexis, your mom. Me. How would that have been better than letting me in? How could you do this Rick?"

"Because I love you!" he shouts.

She falters a bit, tears streaming down her face. "Yeah, well I love you, too! I was here without you Rick. All I had was a huge hole in my heart where you were supposed to be! Do you have any idea what I went through? I lost it Rick. You were afraid that I'd loose it over LokSat, but Castle, I lost it because of you! I fell back into the rabbit hole because of you! If you hadn't come back, I would have never recovered. Don't you get that?"

Castle sobers hearing his wife finally reveal the extent that his disappearance affected her. He knew she struggled, knew she was in pain, he just didn't know it was to this extent. He slowly walks over to her and cups her face, catching her tears with his thumbs. A small whimper escapes her at his touch.

"I'm so sorry Kate. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." Kate's head falls to his shoulder, his hands still framing her face. "Even without my memories, I know that all I wanted was to come home to you. You have to believe that. I was just trying to protect you."

She pulls back enough to look him in the eyes. "I don't need you to protect me Castle. I just need you here, safe and alive."

"And I need the same from you. You think that I would ever recover if you died Kate? I've been there. I've held you as the life slipped from your body and I can assure you, I would not survive that again," he replies passionately.

Kate sighs and softens, falls into him again, wrapping her arms around his waist, placing her head on his chest. He wraps his arms around her, holding her tight.

"We just can't seem to stop this whole protective martyr act. We left each other, made ourselves miserable and vulnerable to life threatening situations. It's not healthy. What are we going to do Rick?" She asks softly.

"I have no idea. All I know is I can't do this anymore."


End file.
